Dec 2022: Part 1

Christmas is upon us! We got real busy, real fast and Christmas was here before we knew it! 

Our school had a Christmas event where we were able to see Santa. He gave out full size candy bars! It was quick, easy and painless. Thank goodness! 

One Saturday, Kenney picked up Tyler and the kids to go get a bookshelf he bought. The kids were rewarded with lots of device time while driving and slushies for helping. 

Soon after Thanksgiving, Santa hats become a daily wardrobe necessity. You will see them often, even though it's almost too hot to wear them. 

Grayson wrote a letter to the elf at school and helpers made sure he got the letter. I was lucky enough to be helping at the school store when I noticed the letter was delivered and got a picture of it. Tyler took Lyla on a date one day while the brothers were at activity days. 

I got to eat lunch with all 3 kids on ice cream Friday. Nolan and I had too much fun to remember to get a picture. I love that I can drop in at lunch with the kids every now and again. This Christmas is one of our more musical ones. We are all working on Christmas songs for the piano and in primary!

The last few years we have decorated holiday houses of some sort. This year we did an Oreo set I found. It's something we all look forward to! Tyler helped kids this year so I could have a turn decorating. We post the collage and let our Facebook friends pick the winner. Nolan came out victorious and he was very proud of his creation! I was a strong second, but Nolan's wreath was really well done!

One day we learned A LOT about tornadoes. You really only learn about them one way. By experiencing them, unfortunately. 

That's right. The kids and I had our very first tornado WARNING. The next pictures show how close one touched down. We are in Saginaw, just barely north of all the grey tornado squiggles. The storm slowly moved across the metroplex, causing a lot of shelters in place. The kids school went into shelter mode. Grayson and Nolan's classes shelter in the nearest bathrooms. Lyla's class sheltered in their in-class bathroom. Tyler's company sheltered in a specific hallway. I sheltered in the coat closet and the dogs quickly followed. There was little to no cell service for a while. We each had about an hour of shelter and then things went back to normal. By 10am I couldn't even tell that we had had a storm that day! It was nerve-wracking for a bit there, but I'm glad that we were kept safe. 

Tyler tried to convince the children against decorating cookies for our friends and neighbors. He wanted to do one small batch just to keep at home for us. They were NOT having it. They couldn't fathom his audacity! They wouldn't back down and decorate we did. A Texas cookie cutter made it's way into our collection and there were a variety of creative Texas cookies this year. 

We got a two full weeks off of school for Christmas break. I had an awesome sick week where the kids got lots of devices and we prepared for Tyler's birthday! That week we were hit with a Texas Polar Plunge. The infrastructure here just cannot handle it. We left all the faucets dripping, covered outside faucets, opened cupboards with pipes and kept the heat above 65 at all times.  I've never done that in all my years in Idaho and Utah. It was strange, but very needed. We luckily, came out unscathed. The lowest we got to was around -15ish. It was cold! Rexburg still had us beat with a solid -35. I don't think I've ever experienced that level of cold! We got a couple hours of light snow flurries from the lake near by and found a snake trying to stay warm. He did not survive. 

Kendra came to sit the kids so Tyler and I could go out. She saw a fun idea and convinced the kids to play along. Only Grayson's shins were sacrificed for the art. They kept forgetting that they were totally blind under the sheets and glasses. Or they were unfortunate enough to have a "guide" that was easily distracted. 

Just as we prepared to leave for dinner, the power went out. I didn't feel comfortable leaving all the people home with no power so we attempted to wait it out. It was literally the weirdest thing. Only about 8 houses were out and it was a random selection of a few here and there. Many of our ward members were here when DFW froze and had no power or water for about 2 weeks. As soon as a neighbor heard ours was out they raced over and invited us over to wait out the power people. My ministering sister checked in as well. It sets off hard PTSD for many of them and they were quick to offer help to us. We are blessed by some great friends in our ward here! 

Thankfully, I had everything done for Tyler's birthday and we had given him a few days of his favorite meals. We started with cake and presents. When we were tired of the power being out we headed to dinner and got stopped by neighbors inviting us over. We all picked up dinner and spent some time in our warm neighbors home. 

This last picture sums up how we all feel about him! Here's to 34; where we continue to learn about all Tyson has to offer and start a MBA with Perdue Global!

Until next time...